Laura Sanders

Neuroscience, Senior Writer, Science News

Laura Sanders reports on neuroscience for Science News. She wrote Growth Curve, a blog about the science of raising kids, from 2013 to 2019 and continues to write about child development and parenting from time to time. She earned her Ph.D. in molecular biology from the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, where she studied the nerve cells that compel a fruit fly to perform a dazzling mating dance. Convinced that she was missing some exciting science somewhere, Laura turned her eye toward writing about brains in all shapes and forms. She holds undergraduate degrees in creative writing and biology from Vanderbilt University in Nashville, where she was a National Merit Scholar. Growth Curve, her 2012 series on consciousness and her 2013 article on the dearth of psychiatric drugs have received awards recognizing editorial excellence.

All Stories by Laura Sanders

  1. Health & Medicine

    Sleepless nights can leave brains feeling anxious

    Pulling an all-nighter boosts anxiety levels — and changes brain activity — the next morning, a new study finds.

  2. Brain

    Young people’s memory improves after stopping marijuana use

    Paying teens and young adults to stop using marijuana improved their memory within one week. The results hint that some impairments from pot may be reversible — at least for a time.

  3. Brain

    People may be literally led by their noses

    The brain links people’s senses of nagivation and smell, according to a new study.

  4. Brain

    How your brain is like a film editor

    A brain structure called the hippocampus may slice our ongoing lives into distinct chunks so that they can then be stored as memories.

  5. Brain

    Less screentime linked to better memory, learning in kids

    Kids ages eight to 11 spend an average of 3.6 hours a day on screens, a new study shows. But the best thinking scores come from kids who average fewer than two hours a day of screen time.

  6. Brain

    Football and hockey don’t necessarily doom players’ brains to serious damage

    A broad look at the brains and behavior of retired pro football players and hockey players finds no signs of early dementia.

  7. Brain

    Soccer headers may hurt women’s brains more than men’s

    Women sustain more brain damage from heading soccer balls than men, a new imaging study indicates.

  8. Brain

    Teeny tiny hairs on brain cells could have big jobs

    Brain cells have tiny antennae called cilia. But no one really seemed to know what they did. Now, scientists have shown they could play a role in obesity.

  9. Animals

    Dog wins tally of nerve cells in the outer wrinkles of the brain

    Golden retrievers rate at the top for numbers of nerve cells, a study of some carnivores finds.

  10. Brain

    Alzheimer’s protein can sneak into the brain from the blood

    Experiments in mice show that proteins linked with Alzheimer’s disease can enter the brain from the blood, then stockpile there.

  11. Brain

    Brains may need flexible networks to learn well

    New data suggest that brain cells may learn best when they are able to easily make and break off communications with neighbors — or distant brain regions.

  12. Brain

    To reveal how the brain creates joy, start by tickling rats

    Rats love a good tickle. Not only do they beg for more, but the action itself activates a part of the brain that detects touch, researchers find.